Ariel Cabrera
b.1982

Education

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2004 Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) Havana, Cuba

1997 - 2002 Graduated from the Fine Arts Academy of Camaguey, Cuba

 

 

Born in 1982, in Camaguey, Cuba, Ariel’s exquisite oils, watercolors and graphite drawings explore the historical discourse between truth and fiction found within the archives of Cuban historical documents. Cabrera received his education from the Fine Arts Academy of Camagüey and the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) Havana, Cuba. 

In his work, Ariel recreates theatrical scenarios inspired by the historical periods like the Interwar Period (1879-1895) and the Cuban War of Independence (1895-1898). His imagined subjects are anecdotal heroes, not depicted as the heroic characters like the traditional representations of heroes in the Cuban colonial paintings by Juan Emilio Hernández Giro, Leopoldo Romañach and Armando Menocal. They have carnal, ludic and sensual desires. His subjects are less military and more human, unlike traditional works from Cuban history where the heroes are portrayed as solemn figures on pedestals.

 

At the beginning of his career as an art student Ariel Cabrera Montejo had the experience of being in constant interaction with collectibles, artwork and documents relating to the collecting of historical memorabilia of Cuba. These documents transcended to him as rare and truthful testimony they guarded information that differed in many cases with the story of the struggle for independence in Cuba and promoted as such remains in force as the official story of a unilateral doctrine. It is then when the motivation to submit the history to a revision from the position of art emerges, and the proposal to take on the more traditional painting techniques to perform works whose historical stories in contrast with traditional narrative content of literature history, and retake the pictorial fact itself as a recording action that along time legitimized the image of men, doctrines and mores.
In his work he selects images taken from pre-established heritage documents to enter rough areas and aspects little touched by the cuban history, setting references relating to the beginnings of photography and its forms of dialogue with painting. Besides, he proposes scenarios about military events of the struggle for the independence of Cuba in stadiums 1868 - 1898, creating simultaneous events and assumptions historiographical dialogues which subject the history in general to scrutiny, where sarcasm, erotic-burlesque and ludic are present, in romantic struggles and intimate scenes shaped as a campaign notes and short stories. He makes an ideological deconstruction of hieratic images of solemn independence patriots or historical heroes (mambí) whose characters are recurring in each stage or battlefield, where the paradox is implicit, and the historical discourse is as an open approach between the truth and simulation. Using different impressionist techniques to hold a better dialogue of visual illusion in each context that he represents and gives more credibility to each scene, using pictorial references like Spanish school painting, Italian and American in some cases, and how these influenced greatly in the history of Cuban art in the colonial period.

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Collections


 

His work is represented in private collection in Cuba, EE. UU., Mexico, Colombia, Spain, Germany and Italy 

 

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Books

 

2019                            

CATALOGUE, ARIEL CABRERA MONTEJO, Trick or Treat, Galleria Mazzoli Editore 

2018                            

APOTHEOSIS l, ARIEL CABRERA MONTEJO 

 

 

Collaborations

 

2018                            

New York Academy of Art, Manhattan, NYC


2017                            

Mano Dura, Una Indicación, Oscar Cruz, Publishing house Casa Vacia, Cuba 

2014                            

Copyist Program Metropolitan Museum of Art, MET, New York, NY


2012                            

Nueva era Magazine, Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico